FRANK
OSSEN, a modern
day Marco Polo and self-taught photographer,was
born on June 15, 1954 in Hoorn, a small historical coastal town in the
Netherlands. Instead of opting for a steady life in Holland (where he
was studying the 'double bass' at the time), he decided in 1976
it
was time to see the world. He bought his very
first camera (an Olympus PEN-EE2),
a busticket to India andset off. He
soon realized that documenting his experiences would be of
great help in
understanding all these new worlds. And
the camera(a Nikon-FA by now) became his closest
ally. With
square eyes he roamed our beautiful planet for many,
many years, picking
up the usual odd job on the way (sometimes working as a
free-lance photographer, but also as a teacher, actor,
guide, illustrator and even as a contractor).
In 1992 - a married man by now - he returned to the Netherlands for a
vacation, but the sudden, violent death of
his brother made him stay. He settled down in Hoorn,
where he is currently working on a photobook about his
birthplace. He also regularly exhibits his work.If you
like his style of photography, you can contact him for
assignments anywhere in the world.

HANS
OSSEN, his late and only brother,
was born on June 17, 1957 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. After his
highschool years he joined his elder brother Frank in 1976 on a world tour,
working his way around the globe. After completing the full circle, he
returned in 1984 to "good old" Amsterdam, where he was
brutally robbed and murdered in 1992, just a few days after
celebrating his 35th birthday. In his memory we've incorporated some
travelogues and photographs of his hand (those taken in Papua New
Guinea, Taiwan, Japan, Hawaii and the USA) in this website.

JEMIMA
OSSEN-ESOY was born on
September 16, 1963 on Mindanao Island in the southern Philippines.
There she met Frank Ossen in 1990, whom she married in Hong Kong the
following year. After honeymooning extensively throughout remote China,
she settled with Frank in the Netherlands, where she excels, among
others, in exotic cooking, charcoal
painting and videofilming. She shot really beautiful video-footage
in Nepal (2000) and in the Philippines (2001). But most important she
is the best support Frank could wish himself.

......AND
WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT THIS WEBSITE

This
website is best viewed with your monitor set on full screen (press
F11) and with an 800 x 600 screen resolution, using Internet Explorer
5.0 as your browser.

All images used in this website (well over 1,700) have been
scanned from the original transparencies and negatives in a resolution
of 96 dpi only, using an Epson 1250 Photo-scanner. Needless to say that
viewing these scans is really no substitute for enjoying the original
images in high quality print, but nevertheless it's the only way to do
so. Please contact us
if you require specific images, as this website shows
only a fraction of our collection. We'll be happy to do a search
and e-mail the results to you.

Some of the travelogues are written in English, some in Dutch. So far
lack of time has prevented me from translating all stories into
English,
but I'm planning to do so when time allows me. Also new travelogues
will be added to the list. By the way, the images used in TRAVELOGUES
cannot be enlarged, in contrary to the images used in our PHOTOGALLERIES,
where a simple click on a thumbnail will show you the bigger picture.

The
section on EXOTIC
MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS is the fruit of more than 25 years of
research. Being an amateur musician and a collector of musical
instruments myself, it's hardly surprising that during my travels I
spent many happy hours nosing around in musical shops, visiting
concerts and talking to musicians. All the collected bits of
information I finally organized when I got my computer and since World
Music has become rather popular these days, I thought it be useful to
put the information on line. Although more than 1500 entries of exotic
musical instruments - modern western instruments are not included - is
quite a lot, the list shall never be complete and additions are most
welcome.